Across centuries and cultures, literature again and again echoes the presence of the Divine Feminine—creatrix, destroyer, mother, lover, healer, wisdom-keeper, Witch, and wild force. She appears in many forms: calling the world into being, descending into the underworld, dancing at the edge of annihilation, speaking through animals and rivers, and rising into dreams, poems, and story.

This presentation invites us on a wide, cross-cultural journey through Her enduring manifestations in myth, poetry, sacred text, and tale. We will explore not only the goddess, but the full arc of the feminine archetypal journey: maiden, mother, crone; the heroine’s descent and return; the outcast, the witch, the hag, and the wise woman who dwells at the edge of the village—and at the center of transformation.

Drawing from multiple traditions, we encounter Inanna’s descent, Kali’s fierce compassion and Sarasvati’s flowing wisdom, feminine bodhisattvas in Buddhist traditions, Mayan and Indigenous earth-based goddesses, the Shekhinah, Baba Yaga, and the Fairy Godmother, as well as the subversive, shape-shifting figures embedded in Irish, Scandinavian, and European fairy tales and in modern literature.

Passages from ancient and contemporary texts—including THE DESCENT OF INANNA, hymns to Sarasvati, Mayan myths, Diane di Prima’s LOBA, Sharon Blackie’s IF WOMEN ROSE ROOTED, works by Madeline Miller, Jean Shinoda Bolen, and Clarissa Pinkola Estés—will guide our exploration. We will trace the heroine’s journey as it deepens the traditional hero’s arc and consider how the Crone, the Witch, and the Hag, carrying forms of knowledge historically suppressed, feared, ritualized, or pushed to the margins of cultural acceptance are ever-present in literature.

Join poet Judyth Hill for an immersive journey into the pulse beneath story, where the sacred feminine continues to speak—hidden, exiled, and rising, calling us to remember. This enlivening, ecstatic presentation will include a slideshow and luscious Bibliography!